life of seven

Summer Days and Reading

She's crawling everywhere, pulling up on things, climbing, letting go and standing on her own, and last Sunday I caught her pushing herself up to a standing position all by herself while playing in the grass. I've been trying to start a daily early morning walk with Clementine in the stroller. This was my usual blogging time (or sometime there in the morning), and so I still need to figure out how to squeeze the blog in while actually getting a bit of exercise. Because it really feels good. The walking and the writing.

Like all of us, Pepper tries to beat the heat. If the hose or the sprinkler is on, she is a happy dog. A spray of water is the most delightful reward and the normally serious Pepper lets her inward puppy come out whenever there is any water around.

Lego minifigs about, always. Some like they originally came, some reconfigured into a mix of different characters, some borrowing parts from others to create make-shift Indiana Jones' or whatever character is necessary for the story, and some deconstructed and left, waiting for the day when they will get reassembled into a playable little lego guy once again. Poor little guys.

I didn't write a reading post last week, so let me update where we are at:

I think I'll just skim past me because I, um, barely read a page last week. And by barely, I mean I can't think of a single book I even picked up and read out of.  As I hang my head in shame.

The other kids have been reading  The Wright Brothers  by David McCullough (Cate assures me this is one of the best books she's ever read, and Grace just now started it, and I really want to read it, too. Yes, actually read it, not just let it sit next to my bed for weeks);

John Adams (Also David McCullough)

Jacob Have I Loved (Katherine Patterson)

Mine For Keeps (Jean Little)

More Lemony Snicket, always

More Shel Silverstein, always

Some random Childhood of Famous Americans

Anne of Green Gables (Evie and I, or I should probably just say, I, haven't been as consistent as I'd like reading this out loud every day, but starting today, I won't let that slide anymore)

More Curious George

And, we have started up The Horse and His Boy  in our "weekly/whenever everyone can make it/ nobody's out of town" book club with friends. We began reading through the Narnia series toward the beginning of the year together. This is probably the fourth time our family has read this series out loud together, not to mention the close to dozen times I read many of the books growing up. Great reading, always. Very deep story, especially when all the books are read in concession, like one very long book.

So, in summation of last week, we didn't quite hit our quotas I would have liked to, but overall, I feel like it was a pretty good week of reading, nonetheless.

Cowl love

This was the perfect road trip knitting project. I really do not enjoy knitting in the car. I get carsick; yarn rolls around on the dirty floor; project instructions get lost; I get bored; it's generally a disaster that I try to avoid at all costs.

However, this was the most perfect car knitting I have ever experienced. I highly recommend this pattern, especially if you are going on a road trip. It strikes that perfect balance of mindless knitting/interesting enough to not get bored. Stripes? simple, easily memorized lace? Fun colors but not needing ALL of them handy at the same time? Cast on once, no increasing, no decreasing, no purling- are you tempted yet?

And the finished cowl? It is cozy perfection. So soft, so colorful, yet so gray. LOVE this one.

So does Evie.

No Guilt

About the "I love mom" sign? Grace taped a sign to me while I was washing dishes and tried to sneak away without me noticing but it didn't work and I asked what the sign said.

"I bet the sign says 'I love Mom!'" I exclaimed.

"No mom, that wouldn't even make sense unless I was wearing it," Grace explained patiently. True.

"Oh. Well, too bad." Instead, the sign said, "I love Tomorrowland" and Grace took it off me and taped it onto Clemmie's back.

Little did I realize my sweet empathetic Evie overheard the whole conversation, until I saw her with the sign you now see taped to her back.  

What a sweetheart. Wearing her sign, we wandered over to visit the neighbor's baby goats. I think they're about a month old now. I'm so glad the neighbors have a mini farm next door with animals my kids can hand feed. This means I don't have to feel guilty that we don't have farm animals.

Two Knitting Projects

Here's where the knitting's at. Top photo is the charmingly named Baby Fleas. I was having so much fun with this sweater, and then I got to the dreaded sleeves. I already dislike knitting sleeves in the round, but it's made worse when it's sleeves on a baby sweater. Add to that the stranded pattern and I'm going to be relieved when they are done. But, as you can see, it shouldn't be too much longer now. I just need to keep at it.

Bottom photo is this cowl. I've wanted to knit this for some time, and these two grays with a pop of bright yellow will be perfect. There were so many shawl patterns that tempted me, like always, but I just haven't figured out how to wear a shawl yet, or even a scarf, for that matter. However, a cowl around the neck- that I know how to do, and I know I will get lots of use out of this, especially in my favorite colors. And, since nine days out of ten, I wear gray, this will always match.

Reading update

Like many others, we love Shel Silverstein around here. I enjoy reading poetry to the kids, but they have through the four, or maybe five Shel Silverstein books on their own many many times. Their favorite poems are dog-eared, which means just about every other page has been dog-eared.

This week, I believe everyone got pretty close to their two hours a day. By everyone, I mean Cate, Grace, and Gideon. If you include my read out loud to Evie, I think she's pretty close to two hours a day, as well. 

Unfortunately, if you include my reading, I probably bring the average way, way down. I managed to read another ten pages out of Atlas. I'm trudging through this book. Next week I'll try to do better and have a better report about my reading.

Cate and Grace have been reading The Worst Hard Time, which Grace just finished. She doesn't want to admit that this history book wasn't boring, like she claims all history book are. She cried in a couple of places, claimed "I'm going to be depressed the rest of my life after reading this!", and came up with a new saying that's been going on around here: "Just when I am about to say 'It's too hot-' I think about the dust bowl and- '...never mind.' "

And so it goes among the kids:

"I'm so tired of eating sandwi-...never mind."

"Our house is so dir....never mind."

So, I don't think this book was boring for Grace, though she won't admit it to me.

Gideon has been reading Anne of Green Gables, and Evie and I are keeping up with him. He's also been reading a Lemony Snicket book, book three in the "All the Wrong Questions" series, and likes it better than the Series of Unfortunate Events, all of which are favorites at our house.

Jude and Truman have been read multiple Curious George books all week, by me, by Evie, by Gideon, plus looking at the pictures by themselves. They have quite a few sections memorized. I had just picked up the edition with all the adventures in one book recently, realizing they hadn't read many of the stories, and they are just loving them so much. I'm remembering the charm of the stories as well while I read them to the boys. 

Those are our reading highlights for the week. I'll give another update in a week!

Big/little girl

Once again, a picture is worth a thousand words. How this little girl has grown up this year, even if her feet are still a good six inches from the ground when she plays piano. 

I've been reading Anne of Green Gables  to her, even though she's close to being ready to read it on her own, and oh, how much fun we are having together.  I don't know why I've never read this book out loud. Talk about the perfect read aloud. It's been years since I read the series (though the last time I read it all the way through was about time number ten) and I realized I was over due for a rereading of it. Gideon is reading it too, actually, but wants to read it on his own instead of listening.

I know Evie's still my little girl, but every once in a while I'll hear something in her voice, or  something she says, or does, that lets out the teeniest glimpse of the big girl that she one day will be. 

Probably my favorite thing about Evie is her sensitivity toward other people. She will always take the side of the underdog, whether the other kids are mercilessly teasing me about something I said, or did, or if Clementine gets hurt, or one of the little boys has gotten into trouble and gets a privilege taken away, my little Evie is there giving that person a sympathetic smile, a hug, or occasionally, a shared tear. She's the sweetest thing.

She's reading  Betsy-Tacy right now (oh, how I love Maud Hart Lovelace), and she's been reading Curious George to her little brothers, and Cate is determined to make her into her own personal a bookworm companion, so they can share favorites together. Grace and Gideon don't quite hit the mark Cate wishes they were at, reading-wise. While Grace and Gideon do enjoy reading, they don't love it as much as Cate would like them to. It's funny- Cate consumes books like a weary traveler in the dessert drinks up water. Gideon enjoys reading the same way he enjoys all kinds of other activities- football, piano, fixing things, playing with the dog, building with legos, drawing. Reading is one of his many interests, and he often just needs to be reminded to pick it up again. Grace will often claim she's not in the mood to read when I suggest it to her, but once she finds a book that interests her, I've never seen anyone get as engrossed in a story as she gets. "Mom, I'm such an exciting place in my book!" or "I think I'm going to feel depressed the rest of my life!" will often be spoken from behind the book she is reading.

What Cate wants is a reading partner who will love the same books she loves, and who will consume any and all reading material placed before her. Cate thinks she has found this partner in Evie, and is taking careful steps to gently nurture her reading habits, and often warningly tells Grace, "Don't you dare tell Evie that book is boring! I want her to read it for herself because I know she will love it!"

Anyway, Evie. So little, so big. I love eight.

Cream Puff Fail

See those popovers in the top picture? I've made several patches lately, like, every weekend for breakfast, and they've come out perfectly. Each time, I've worried and fretted upon placing them in the oven, certain they weren't going to puff this time, and then upon gazing into the oven through the little window, discovered, to my utter joy, that no, they actually did puff!

Last week I got the notion to make cream puffs, glorious delicious cream puffs. I found a random recipe online and while I nervously watched them the same way I did the popovers, they puffed perfectly and I began to grow confident.

I checked out Comfort Foods by Jamie Oliver at the library. Remember my reading goals? Well if there's one thing I enjoy reading, it's a well written cookbook. Nigella Lawson's are my favorites. She can make anything sound delicious, even beets and carrot salads. She makes me wish I liked raisins. And, she's British. What's not to love? Jamie Oliver is fun too, though his foods are often a little strange sounding to me. Come to think of it, before this week, I don't know that I've ever cooked any of his recipes, though I've read several of his cookbooks I've gotten at the library. Comfort foods, that sounds great. British comfort foods: yes, just labeling them "British" automatically elevates the comfort level a notch.

So, I tried out his recipe for cream puffs. I made a double recipe because I was planning to print them to little afternoon tea party we were having with some friends. I pulled the batch out of the oven, and sadly, they had.not.puffed. My confidence in my ability to make puffy egg pastries waned a bit and I grew suspicious, but didn't know what to be suspicious of yet. Obviously, I had made a perfect batch last week, so what could have gone wrong this time? Maybe it was the double batch I had made. Maybe I had added an extra cup of flour in when doubling. Maybe it was the recipe...Unfortunately I hadn't followed the recipe to the letter- that could have been my problem. I have trouble following recipes to the letter. I had used water instead of the called for milk, because I had never seen a recipe for choux pastry dough before that called for milk. Well, I decided to give it another try, this time a single batch, and obey Jamie Oliver: just make a single recipe, use milk, and bake it at the suggested oven temperature, even though other recipes I'd looked at suggested a higher temp.

This time the little pastries began to puff a bit, though not as high as I would have liked, and then, when I took them out of the oven, they deflated depressingly within a minute. I tried to fill the little puffs with whipped cream still, but they would have none of it. There was nowhere for the whipped cream to go because they didn't have a big air filled cavity. Dejectedly, I realized I would have no beautiful cream puffs to take to the tea. And I still don't know what/who to blame. I'm sure another minute or two in the oven would have helped, or should I have gone with the higher temperature I've seen other chefs recommend, Alton Brown being one of them? Is it the mile above sea level that wreaked havoc on my recipe?

Instead of a photo of beautiful cream puffs, I'll leave you a picture of Pepper, instead. If ever it were possible for a dog to absorb and learn to appreciate classical music, it is she. I'm curious what it sounds like to her ears. Random noises? Is she as relieved as the rest of us when Gideon begins to learns something new on the piano?

 

Worth 1000 words

Sunday was the kids' spring piano recital. In short, I was once again made a very proud mama, as my children played brilliantly yesterday. All four of them. They looked beautiful, too. This is one of those posts, I think, where the picture says it all.

More Summer Reading

My last post was reflective of something that's been occupying my thoughts a lot lately, namely, the desire to incorporate lots, lots, lots more reading into our lives. You see, I love to read. I always have. I wanted to be a librarian, or a book store owner, or an author, or invent the career of professional reader, maybe, or any sort of thing that would cause me to be surrounded by beautiful, wonderful smelling books all day long. My love of books has sort of been neglected over the last few years, sadly, due in part to having a large family, a busy social life, lots of crafting, and the easily accessible reading on the internet on any subject that should strike my fancy. But reading online is not reading the way reading a book is reading: cozying up in a corner of the couch, light streaming in from a window, or perhaps rain pattering outside, a cup of something hot in hand, nowadays a knitting project close by, and a book with actual pages that can be dogeared and underlined and bookmarked (not virtually) in hand. My love of that type of reading has lay dormant for awhile, not that I haven't read any books, but the pure pleasure of reading for leisure has been somewhat forgotten and for the last few years the reading has kind of felt like work.

Well, that must change. I want to model better and healthier reading habits for my kids, all of who love to read to some degree or another, but I want them all to experience the delight of escaping into a book that I so often had growing up, more frequently than what it has been up to now.

A visit to the library where we signed up for the summer reading program cemented this goal for me, and by extension, the whole family. This year, the library seems to have outdone itself on  motivating summer readers. A book every ten hours of reading time, lots of drawings for prizes, and a special final prize for the select few who clock one hundred hours of reading time over the summer: a special party  thrown just for those super-hero readers-- and in case you were wondering, yes, I'm a dork; I totally took the bait and now want all of us to try to hit the hundred hours of reading  goal. I'm even firmer in my resolve to get us reading and I'm ready to roll with it. 10 weeks, 100 hours. It's definitely doable. What's more, we will have fun doing it!

I've decided to try to keep a log on here, of sorts, yes, I know that a blog actually is a web log, but now I plan to really put the log back into blog and try my best to log our reading on here this summer. I want to aim for weekly updating, but I will have to see how it actually goes.

So, over the last few days, here's what we've been reading:

Read alouds:

Some poetry

Three short stories by O.Henry

Anne of Green Gables

The Picture Bible

The Action Bible

The Best Nest

A Fly Went By

Are You My Mother?

Many, many Arch Books

Me: Trying desperately to finish Atlas Shrugged; I'm finally nearing the finish line. Thank goodness. Maybe I'll get done this week.

The kids, working on and/or finishing:

An Agatha Christie Mystery

A Walt Disney biography

The Father Brown mysteries

The Worst Hard Time

Boys in the Boat

Several Lemony Snicket books

A Tin Tin book

Betsy -Tacy

All About Sam (Lois Lowry)

That's where we're at, off the top of my head. 

I hope you enjoy hearing about what we're reading. I plan to offer some more thoughts and insight as we go along, but the goal is mainly reading for pleasure here. We have some great summer reads ahead of us, I just know it!

Summer Reading

Photo, completely unrelated to this post, is of Grace's cat, Finn

I've decided we're officially done with our school year. Testing's done, kids are smarter than they were in the fall, and school books are begging to be put back on the shelf. One of the things I'm looking forward to putting down the "textbooks" (not that we use that many of those) and having time to do more good old fashioned book reading. I really prefer this over textbooks in general, but I'm always a little surprised at how easy it is for the school day to go by and not see my children's noses stuck in a book at some point. I know they love to read, but during the school year I try to push more "educational", if you will, books at them, and I want them to spend hours upon hours just reading for fun. I know that's what I did growing up- Baby Sitter's Club (oh, yes, those made up a huge part of my reading, haha!), anything by Lois Lowry, anything by Jean Little, anything by Willo Davis Roberts, anything  by Donald J. Sobol, anything by Maud Hart Lovelace, anything by L.M. Montgomery, anything by Gertrude Chandler Warner, anything by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, anything by Katherine Patterson and I can't think what else unless I spend more than five seconds thinking about it, which I don't feel like doing right now, but based on this sampling, you can probably tell that some of it was quality and some of it was less so. Or, at least, not very challenging. Also, oddly, I recognize now that most of the authors I read were women. Hmmm. I wonder why? I know I didn't seek out women authors. But, I guess they just ended up writing my favorite books.

The point is, I read and read and read and because of it, I learned all kinds of odd random facts that I would have otherwise never known. So, over the summer I hope to relax my standards somewhat and let the kids read what they want. No, not whatever they want, of course, but rather, remember that not everything one reads needs to be an exercise for the mind. Rereading an easy book for the fifth time has amazing benefits. One, just pure enjoyment, if the book is good enough to warrant a fifth reading. Two, just reading that many words increases vocabulary and models correct spelling and grammar. One hopes, anyway. Three, the authors style makes an impression, either favorably or unfavorably, helping to develop a budding writer.

I'm sure I have lots more thoughts on this, however, my darling little Clementine is making a beeline for the stairs with every sentence written, and rather than get up to chase her down every five seconds (maybe that's where my five second attention span is coming from right now!) I think I will finish up my thoughts at another time.